Sports

**Video Below the Fold** In a recent interview with USA Olympics basketball team member Kobe Bryant, NBC Sports reporter Chris Collinsworth seemed to question Kobe's patriotism when the player said that he was proud to wear the team USA uniform. Wondering if it was "cool" to be proud of being on Team USA, Collinsworth seemed to surprise even Bryant with the temerity of the question. Why…

While the Washington Post's Beijing-based Ariana Eunjung Cha should be commended for her reporting on Beijing's restrictions on the exercise of religion by Olympic team chaplains, the paper's headline editors clearly dropped the ball in titling her August 14 headline: "Some Olympians Dissatisfied With Religious Center."The casual reader might say, "so what," and breeze past the article. After all…

Could the NBC honchos be a tad touchy about criticism of the Beijing Olympics—especially when it comes from its own talent pool?  Was there a kernel of truth in Mika Brzezinski's light-hearted warning that MSNBC's Morning Joe crew would "get a call" if it persisted in its mocking of the games for whose broadcast rights the Peacock Network has over the years paid billions?When the subject of the…

The Cornell golf club championship is next weekend, and I had been planning [brag alert] to defend the senior men's title I won last year.  But now, I just might have to think about entering the women's division instead.  The field is much smaller, not nearly as tough, and playing from the red tees should give me quite an advantage.  But what if tournament organizers balk at my entry, you ask? …

Hey, did you know that Barack Obama is young and energetic? Also, he's a real go-getter with a drive to win. Did I mention that he's young? That's the underlying message of lowered expectations and hipness from the June/July Men's Fitness article, "25 Fittest Guys In America." MF lumped Obama in with elite athletes, such as an Olympic boxer, an Ironman triathlete, three mixed martial artists and…

In the wake of the infamous (and illegal) antics of the New England Patriots, having admitted they repeatedly and blatantly broke the rules and cheated during their Super Bowl run of the early 21st century, a story appeared in the Boston Herald newspaper that the Patriots had taped the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough prior to beating the heavily favored Rams in the 2001 Super Bowl. Since the…

Aren't southern gentlemen supposedly chivalrous? Yet Joe Scarborough, son of the Florida Panhandle, today exploited Mika Brzezinski's less-than-encyclopedic knowledge of sports to lure his Morning Joe colleague into agreeing that the famous former coach of the Indiana University basketball team was none other than . . . Bear Bryant.The jumping-off point was Joe's wearing of a red sweater today…

Cindy Brunson's report on Lorena Ochoa's winning streak wasn't a mere double-bogey. Think of it as a shank into the lake, or better yet, that most inept stroke of all: a total whiff. Apparently desperate for a feminist angle on Ochoa's success, the ESPN News anchor decided to drag Title IX and the ERA into her account.Ochoa's victory at the Ginn Open was her fourth LPGA win in a row. Here's…

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," while covering Roger Clemens’ testimony before Congress, co-host Maggie Rodriguez talked to sports radio talk show host, Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, who said of the hearing: "I thought the panel for the most part did a pretty good job on the Democratic side. And I'm not really a party politic guy, but the Republicans did a terrible job." Russo went on to bash…

Maybe they should have added a few carbon credits to this Super Bowl bet. NBC's "Today" co-anchor Meredith Vieira lost a bet to fellow co-anchor Matt Lauer for the New York Giants 17-14 win over the New England Patriots. But it wasn't exactly a carbon-neutral endeavor. "[Y]ou know, let's check the traffic chopper, chopper four for Meredith - to see how traffic is over the West Side [of New…

I found a surprising article in the New York Times, one that probably shocked its liberal-leaning base.   The headline was slanted, but  this January 11 article was a thoughtful assessment of the unintended, but predicted, consequences of the state laws banning US horse slaughter. With the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act that would ban the export of US horses for slaughter before Congress…